The Church at It's Best

The great faithfulness of our Lord shows itself in part

through communicating His love and care for us as He does

through His Word. I would ask you at this time to

attend to the word of the Lord. And they devoted themselves to

the apostles, teaching, and the fellowship to the breaking of

bread. And the prayers and awe came

upon every soul. And many wonders and signs were

being done through the apostles. And all who believed were

together and had all things in common.

And they were selling their possessions and belongings, and

distributing the proceeds to all as any had need.

And day by day, attending the temple together and breaking

bread in their homes, they received their food with glad

and generous hearts, praising God and having favor with all

the people. And the Lord added to their

number day by day, those who were being saved.

And this is the word of the Lord.

Thanks be to God. Dear Lord, we once again ask for

your blessing upon us as we hear these words.

Lord, help us to listen. Help us to listen well and to be

changed and transformed, not by the things that I say, but by

the things that you say. Through the power of your word

in which we trust, we ask through Christ our Lord.

Amen. Please be seated.

If you would grab your Bibles and turn to Acts Chapter 2, the

Acts 2 · chapter mention

last section in Acts Chapter 2. Some of you are familiar with

Acts 2 · chapter mention

the fact that I grew up about 100 miles north of here, a place

called Conneaut Lake, PA. And it was a fairly large sized

lake and we lived right on right alongside the lake.

And so my father had a speedboat and we spent a lot of our time

speeding around the lake, driving around the lake.

And as a family, we went swimming, we went fishing off

the boat, but largely we went skiing, water skiing off the

boat. Somewhere along my growing up

years, I'm not sure exactly when it happened, but my father

bought a sailing boat, a little sunfish sailing boat, one man

kind of a sailing boat. And I well remember the first

time that I took it for a spin. It was beautiful out, it was

wonderful. The wind was perfect and

everything worked absolutely wonderful.

It was sailing at its absolute best.

The boom saved free from all obstructions.

The center board and the rudder were worked perfectly by me.

The wind was perfect. I tacked around through the lake

all day, all day long. It was hours long process.

It was absolutely a perfect experience of being sailing

across that board. And I will say that as wonderful

as that first experience was, the next 100 times I never

repeated that there was always something wrong.

Everything. Now, it doesn't mean that

everything was bad from the next 100 times I went out sailing,

but sort of every the rest of the time that I went out, always

something happened. The Boone got caught up in the

ropes or I misplayed the center board or the rudder or the raw

problem with with the well in the boat, There was always a

problem. There's always something or I

tacked poorly through the time. Always.

It was never compared to that first experience, but I have to

say that that first experience didn't spoil sailing for me.

Rather, what it did is it put forward a model.

The rest of the time, most of the time was a good experience.

It just wasn't great. There were always some problems

there that were present and that first experience of sailing,

sailing at its best, kind of was always held forward as an image

or as a model for me of something that we were to, that

I was to aspire to as I went sailing.

I hope that I have as good a time out this time as I had that

very first time that I went along those lines.

Many of you know that we are working our way through the book

of Acts and we are focusing primarily upon three main

characteristics, the Holy Spirit, the Church, and the

world. And the interplay of those 3

characteristics come across very clearly in the book of Acts.

Part of them come. Part of that interplay happens

very powerfully in Acts chapter 2, which is the passage that we

Acts 2 · chapter mention

looked at the past couple of weeks.

And here we're looking at the very last section of it.

It opens with a description of something that happens when the

Holy Spirit comes upon the church there, disguises that the

power of the Holy Spirit coming. And then you've got that middle

section that we looked at last week, which was Peter's sermon

where he explains what happened in the description of the power

of the Spirit. And here these last few verses

of the chapter 2 of the Book of Acts detail for us the results

of that action. So first you had the description

of the action, then you had the explanation by Peter of the

action in his sermon, and now we have the results of the effect

of this. And I like to think of this as a

church at its best. This is the first brief cameo of

what it looks like to be the Church of the people of God.

And it is a beautiful picture. Now, you might think to

yourself, well, of course it is. It's in the Bible and it's going

to be that way. But I will tell you that as we

continue to move through the book of Acts, we are going to

continue to run into periods and descriptions of the church where

the church deals with some immense problems internally as

well as external. They're going to struggle with

things. And we're going to look at them

as we look at the book of Acts. And we're going to see the

church failing to live up to the model that is put forward in

this first brief experience of this cameo of this beautiful

picture of what it looks like for a church to be filled with

the spirit. Because that's what's happened

here in the early part of the book of, of the chapter 2.

Here we have the power of the Holy Spirit coming upon the

people. They come upon the church.

And now Peter describes what takes place.

And in these final verses we say this is what a spirit filled

church looks like. Hebron is a great church.

There's a lot of wonderful things that take place here.

We have our problems, we have our failures.

We have difficulties in which we go through.

We also have some successes and across the board we want to be

the church at its best, and I think there's no better place to

look at that than in these verses.

We see what it means for a church to be at its best right

off the bat when we see that first of all, a church at its

best is a learning church, a learning church.

Look in verse 42, if you would with me and the church members,

the people, they devoted themselves to the apostles

teaching. They devoted themselves to the

apostles teaching. Now, of course, you got to

recognize what's happening here. We are right in the window of

the years after Jesus's death where the apostles were roaming

the earth, where the apostles were present there.

And Can you imagine the great joy?

Can you imagine what it would have been like to actually sit

in a room where Peter was saying, hey, I remember when

Jesus said this and when he did this or when John said it.

Look, this is what it meant when Christ went to the cross and

died for us, or this is what it looked like when he was

resurrected. Can you imagine what it would

have been like to sit at the disciples feet as they were

talking and saying, look, these are the things that I remember

and the excitement in which they would talk about Jesus Christ

next to having Jesus himself present, speaking to them.

What could have been better, possibly better than having the

disciples, the apostles, They're saying, look, this is what we

know about Jesus Christ. Some of you realize that I'm

setting you up. I hope some of you realize I'm

setting you up because that's exactly what we have in the

scriptures. That's exactly what we have in

the Bible. The Bible is the record of the

apostles teachings, John 14 and John 16.

During those passages Jesus makes it clear that when he

leaves he will leave a record for us of his teachings, of his

speakings. And he does that through the

apostles. The apostles are called to mind.

The Holy Spirit calls to mind all the things that Jesus did so

that the apostles can faithfully pass it on.

And they have done so when you come before your the scriptures,

when you humble yourself before the Scriptures, when you set

yourself before the scriptures, you are exactly exposing

yourself to the apostles teachings.

You are in the exact scenario in which we painted earlier where

Jesus is left and left us with the apostles and left us with

the apostles teachings as all they remember and all they teach

us about Jesus Christ. We have that at the scriptures.

How can we not, if we are to be a church that I think what we

are, if we're to be that church at its best, we are going to be

a church that is a learning church, a church that is

growing, a church that is expressing and showing itself in

submission to the Scriptures, not just as a congregation.

It's hard to read this text and see it just speaking

collectively of the whole, but not also recognize that it's

speaking individually of every member, every member here, every

worshipper, every person. That's part of our fellowship.

If we are to be a church at its best is going to be somebody who

is devoted to the apostles teaching, devoted to the

Scriptures. We don't have a Bible study that

is going to fit every perfect schedule.

I realize that, but you have to find a way.

You have to find a way to be submissive to the Word of God,

to set yourself at the feet of the apostles and to hear their

teaching. You absolutely have to do that,

and not just in a ritualistic way.

Look at the word that they use. I love this verb.

And they devoted themselves. They devoted themselves to the

apostles teaching. And when I think of devotion, I

think of a couple of different things.

One is commitment that they're committed to it through the long

haul, that they're dedicated across the board.

Secondly, that that commitment is willing to be to to be

willing to be pursued even at a great cost, that it's costly,

that there's a sacrifice that is involved in it.

Sure, I'm committed to this, but I'm committed to this and it's

going to cost me time and energy and my focus.

And what I really want to do is I submit myself to the apostles

teaching. There's a costly commitment, but

it's also, I have to say, there's a number of projects in

my life that I have to do a lot of things that I have to do

around here at the church. And I try very much so to be

faithful and committed to it. And it cost me a lot of things

because I don't want to do them necessarily, but I pursue them.

And I wouldn't say that those things I'm devoted to.

Just because I'm committed to them, just because they're

costly to me, doesn't mean that I'm devoted to them.

I'm missing something. What am I missing?

I'm missing the the passion, the completeness, the idea that to

be devoted to something is to be full out involved with it, to be

committed completely of yourselves to the thing.

These folks are committed to the word of God.

That's what a church that is spirit filled, a spirit filled

church that is a church at its best is going to be committed to

the word of God in every possible way.

They're going to be devoted to it as we need to be devoted to

the word of God, both collectively but also all of us

individually. Now, this bumps up against a

characteristic that some hot time effects has affected the

American church in the past 200 years to various degrees.

And that is the idea that the more you learn about God, the

less you trust him, That there's some counterintuitive opposition

that happens between trusting the Lord and acting in faith in

the Lord and understanding and knowing Him.

If we understand, if we try too hard to understand things about

the Lord, then we will not trust Him.

We won't act in the spirit filled grace and mercy.

And this passage completely argues the exact opposite, that

a spirit filled church. What church could possibly be

more spirit filled than this one?

The early days of Pentecost where the Holy Spirit visibly

came upon them and they were manifesting the presence of the

Spirit in every way. And yet still they devoted

themselves to the apostles teacher teaching.

They were committed to understand, They were committed

to learn more and to grow more rather than take away from our

faith. The scriptures build our faith

and grow our faith. We need to be a learning church,

a church that is committed to understanding more and more of

the apostles teaching. But that's not all.

Not only are we a learning church first, but the church at

its best is also a church that that is a loving church.

Look in verse 42. And they devoted themselves to

the apostles teaching and the fellowship and the fellowship.

Now this is a Christianese word. If there ever is 1.

You know, we always, you know, let's fellowship together and

those kind of things. And when we think of fellowship,

my guess is that largely what we think of are the doughnuts that

follow our worship service. And it's, you know, the mingling

and the talking and, you know, checking on the weather and did

you get snowed in the other day? And, you know, doing the kind of

small style chit chat in which we do.

And that passes for our fellowship.

And that's part of it. That's an undeniable part of it.

I urge you strongly after the service to go help yourself to

Jerry's Doughnuts, Have a doughnut and sit around and chit

chat with people. It's absolutely true.

But fellowship is that word. And this is one of these Greek

words that you might have heard around the voice, Koinonia

fellowship. The word that's used here is

Koinonia. And Koinonia doesn't mean small

talk. It doesn't mean bumping into

each other. It doesn't mean chitchat.

What it means is common, a common sharing.

They committed themselves to what we have in common.

My friends, what do we have in common?

Think about it, OK? We're all, we all live somewhere

in the Pittsburgh area. We could say that we have that

in common. We all are kind of in the same

economic socioeconomic status in life.

OK, that's kind of in common. But you know, we're not totally

we we all kind of have the same belief structure, but not what

is it that we have in common. We have in common Jesus Christ

and the salvation, the redemption that we have in Jesus

Christ. That is a common bond that holds

us together. That is what it means that we

have fellowship with each other. When I look at you and we have

fellowship together, we are expressing and stressing that

commonality. And this comes true when the

author here elaborates a little bit at this.

Look if you could at verse 44 and all who believed were

together and had all things in common that common.

There is again that repetition of Koinonia, of the idea of

fellowship, of commonness. What do we have in common

together? We have that in common which

leads us to Jesus Christ. And that Jesus Christ commonness

is scary. Now, if you're not uncomfortable

when you read this passage, you're not reading it well.

You're reading it like it's talking about the church 2000

years ago and has nothing to do with us.

And you can't read the Scripture that way.

You cannot read the Scripture that way.

The Holy Spirit, just as he filled that church, is filling

this church and is forcing us to confront totally that scripture

that says, and all who believed were together and they had all

things in common. Verse 45 And they were selling

their possessions and belongings and distributing the proceeds to

all as any had need. A spirit filled church, a church

at its best is a loving church and a loving church is going to

recognize the need of those who around us now.

Now is not the time to tackle biblical economics or biblical

ethics, but we should notice it. You should absolutely notice the

fact that the disciples, the early church, were selling their

possessions so that they could cover the needs of the people

that are around them now. Does that mean that God is

calling all of us to go out and sell all of our homes and all of

our cars and give away our bank accounts?

Maybe, as we know that he's done that with the rich young roller.

He did exactly that. I'm not suspecting that that's

what this passage is telling us. It certainly is not in part

because it's descriptive. It's telling us what they did.

It's not prescriptive telling us what we must do.

But there is a principle that is present here.

Do you see the principle at the end of verse 45?

They were selling their possessions and belongings and

distributing the proceedings as any had need.

Now we're told a little bit later that they were breaking

their breads in their homes. So it's clear that not everybody

sold their homes, not everybody gave everything away.

This is not a call of communism or socialism, but it is an

absolute declaration of insistence that we care for

those who are in need. Every week this church is

confronted by people who are in need from the outside and from

the inside, and it is a horrible accusation against us if we are

ever unable, in a wise and godly, stewardly way, to meet

those needs. If you ever want to hear some of

the great stories of what it means to meet some of those

needs, talk to Jerry, talk to the staff, talk to those who are

meeting those needs and does. Who can describe the wealth of

blessing that the Lord pours out through this church when this

church is at its best? Nobody is without a need that is

being wisely stewardly met. Now, does that mean that

everybody here needs to go out and sell everything?

Probably not. Maybe, but probably not.

But if you can't read this passage and insist that you come

away and relook at your own balance, book, checkbook,

savings account, your finances, if you can't say to yourself I

can do more to care for the needs of my brothers and

sisters, those whom I have in common.

Then again, I can't believe you're reading the scriptures

right. I realize that there are people

that are living on the edge of the bubble here at financially.

I know that to be true. I've spent time talking with

you, etcetera. I still cannot believe that

there's not anybody in this room that cannot hear well this text

and say I've got to look again to see if I can help meet the

needs of any in our fellowship because of the common bonds that

we have in Jesus Christ. Christian fellowship is

Christian caring and Christian caring is Christian sharing.

We have to do better. We do great sometimes, but we

don't do great sometimes. We have to do better if we're

going to be the church at its best, which is a church that is

devoted to the apostles teaching and also to the fellowship.

And looking back at verse 42 them you also see that it is a

church that is devoted to the breaking of bread and the

prayers. Breaking of the bread and the

prayers. Breaking of the bread might

sound a little different to you, but if you've been around church

long enough, you'll know the association.

It's a metaphor here for a communion, that we have the

worship together. So this is a picture of worship

as a whole, a learning church. It is a loving church, is a

worshipping church. It is a church that worships and

it worships well, and it worships according to the Word

of God in the Scriptures. And we can see that worship

played out here again as we see in verse 46, where the author

goes on and says and day by day attending the temple together

and breaking bread in their homes.

What are they doing here? They're worshipping together.

That's breaking the bread and the prayers is collectively

stated here that for them worshipping.

And how are they worshipping? They're worshipping in the

temple together. Now, what do we mean by that,

the imagery here or how do we translate that forward?

We're not likely to travel over to Jerusalem to worship in the

temple. What how do we translate that

forward? They were worshipping

collectively as a group together and individually in family units

in their homes. That's what I understand verse

46 to say. They were attending the temple

together and breaking their bread in their homes.

Their worship, the worship that God calls forward from a spirit

filled church, is going to be a worship where God's people come

together and worship Him and where they learn what it means

to worship the Lord individually.

Where worship, personal worship, becomes an essential part of who

you are as a follower of Jesus Christ.

That worship is present here when we gather together, and

it's present in your life. If you are worshipping the Lord

for one hour a week, you are doomed to dissatisfaction in

your own life. It is impossible not to imagine

that there will not be unfaithfulness that comes about

in your life if your cool life of worship is built around one

hour a week. Worship is something that is

supposed to mark every characteristic, every aspect of

our lives and what kind of worship are we talking about And

again, I I love that there's that they speak to this here.

Look back in verse 43 for a second and awe came upon every

soul. Awe there worship is a is a

reverence to our Lord and if ever we're irreverent in our

worship, we are failing to be biblical.

We're failing to act out a spirit filled church.

Our church needs to be filled and our worship needs to be

filled your personal worship and our collective worship needs to

be filled with an awe inspiring time and trust me, your staff

tried desperately to make worship here an awe inspiring

fact. Now of course it's not up to us

it's up to the spirit that is moving within us.

It's up to the spirit moving within you to bring that awe

about, but we need to do our best for worship to be a

reverent, awe inspiring experience and yet also

collectively look in verse 46 and they were received their

food with glad and generous hearts praising God and having

the favor of all the people. There's a joyous characteristic.

Worship is an off filled experience.

It absolutely is, but it is unforgivable if it is dull.

It's unforgivable if it is boring.

Worship is coming before the Lord Himself.

Of course there's great reverence there.

There's great reverence, but there is absolute joy that is

manifest in the people of God, both in our collective worship

and in our individual worship. This kind of experience is what

it means to be part of a church that is spirit filled, a spirit

filled church, a learning church, a loving church, a

worshiping church, and a church that is preoccupied with its

learning, loving and worship. Could very well miss this 4th

characteristic that is displayed at the end of verse 47.

And the Lord added to their number day by day, those who

were being saved. A learning church is a loving

church, is a worshipping church, is a witnessing church, an

evangelistic church. It is a church whereby Remember

this goes all the way back to God's first initial command.

Wait in the Jerusalem for the power of the Holy Spirit to come

upon you and then you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, Judea,

Samaria and to the ends of the earth.

The the church is called into existence to be a witnessing

church and the witnessing to the world.

This is the connection between the Spirit, the church and the

world. Here we have the world as a

target audience for which the church is faithful and for the

which the church is called into mission by God himself.

God is called the Spirit filled church to be a witnessing

church. And again, you can see the great

effect of Heaven church faithfully in its witness.

And I think you'd have to say we could do so much more.

We could do so much. We are surrounded by people,

literally thousands of people within a mile radius of this

church who desperately need to hear the gospel message.

Thousands, folks, thousands. And we know that this is a

spirit filled church. And the way that the spirit

filled church leads them to do this is articulated at the end

of verse 47. Notice these three

characteristics. First off, a spirit filled

church realizes that we are witnessing to the Lord, but it

is a Lord who does the work. Who does this work here in verse

47. At the end of verse 47, it's the

Lord added to their number. It's the Lord that does the

work. We need to be faithful, the

tools in His hands, but He is the one who does the work.

It is our responsibility to be faithful, to witness and to pray

and to seek and to be devoted to it.

In the same way that we're talking about devotion here, to

be devoted that way. And yet ultimately it is the

Lord's call for for him to work. And what does he do?

He adds day by day, consistently, constantly.

This is not, I'm not making us a plea for an evangelistic

campaign, although I'm all for that.

If we want to do something like that, because it's something

that needs to be a part of our everyday experience.

The Lord adding to our numbers every single day, consistently,

constantly. Secondly and then finally, those

who were being saved, He is adding to the church those who

are being saved. There is a connection to being

saved and being part of the church.

The connection is undeniable here.

This gives up the this this betrays the impossibility of The

Lone Ranger Christian. There is no such thing as a Lone

Ranger Christian. A Christian is tied to the

church because the Lord adds to their number every day those who

are being saved. For those of us who are saved,

we are added into the Church of God and he calls us then to be

part of this perfect church. I think in which you can think

of the church at its best in terms of a series of

relationships. A church at its best is going to

be in relationship of submission to the Word of God, to the

apostles teaching. How effectively is the

relationship that you have personally with the Word of God

in submission? Not something that you have it,

not something that you read it, but that you are submitting

yourself to it devotedly. How effective is this church's

ministry and submission to the Word of God?

Secondly, related to that, how are we related in love towards

one another? A costly love, devoted love

committed, costly, all consuming.

How is your love displayed towards those around you?

Not the people you like, they're the easy ones to love, but the

people that you barely know here.

Are you demonstrating a love relationship because that's

built into what it means to have a spirit filled church at its

best. How is your relationship with

God collectively and individually?

Is your worship filled with reverence?

Is your worship filled with awe? Is your worship filled with joy?

And if it's not, it might be part our problem.

We might need to do better from the front, but I guarantee you,

you got to do better. That relationship is on us to be

that related to God in worship. And finally, how are we related

to the world with witnessing? How effectively do we

communicate the gospel message? How effectively are we exposing

ourselves in sacrifice to those around us who desperately need

the blessings of the call of God?

What's your relationship like with the Scriptures?

With the apostles? What's your relationship like

with others? What's your relationship like

with God? What's your relationship like

with the world? There's got to be something

there for you to take home and ask that question that Peter's

audience asked. Brothers and sisters, what shall

we do? Lord God, we do ask for your

great blessing here upon us as we are confronted why by this

beautiful picture, this beautiful cameo of the church at

its best. We thank you that you have

placed us in a position where we have so many good things going

on here and yet where we have so many opportunities where we can

be better both as a church individuals collectively.

Lord, make it so. We pray so that that great

blessing of ministering to this world, loving one another,

demonstrating our submission to the Scriptures, and worshipping

you comes through in all that we do.

We pray through Jesus Christ our Lord and our Savior.

Amen.